Why Are There 12 Notes In Music But Only 7 Letters? 

I've played guitar for 20 years for fun and never knew this and too embarrassed to ask. This was so easy to understand and now I have learned it! Thanks!!

Well, interesting but still did not answer the question. I suspect it has something to do with some notes play well together and some do not.

So you didn't explain why only 7 out of 12 notes comprise the diatonic scale which is what you promised to explain in the title of the video.

The question was ‘why’, but why was never addressed.

i'm still confused why those specific 7 aren't all 12 notes a semitone apart from each other?

12 makes more mathematical sense., no sharps or flats, just 12 notes.

It seems just as intuitive to me to use 12 letters (A through L) and skip some of them in different scales than it does to have to add sharps or flats to some of the 7 letters in some scales. Also, note that in non English speaking countries, the notes are not A through G, but "do", "rae", etc. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge.

"Each note has a sharp and flat". Why didn't we pick C# as a main note? Then color C and D into black and push them upward on the piano keyboard? (Because C is a flat of C#; D is a sharp or C#)

Great video, thank you!

Well done, I enjoyed the history part of it too. Thank You

Can you please make a lesson on the ' Concept of harmony ' ?

I play the guitar. I use 1,2,3,4, ..., 12 for notation, where 1 movable and is the tonic note of the key. Playing a string instrument like guitar, it's more intuitive to know that the major key 1 3 5 6 8 10 12 corresponds to the fingering pattern.

At 3:54 you say, "written music was developed to record compositions and ideas." Do you have any sources (books, websites, etc.) regarding this? I would like to find out more about that.

So what you're saying is: Notes played in a scale are diatonic, using all 7 letters A to G, but, there are notes between so they will have to be called A sharp, C sharp etc.

If it were me, I'd do away with flats and sharps and name the noted from A to L. You could still play the same intervals as you do now just by ignoring the notes that aren't in the scale you're playing, just the names of the notes would be simpler. The staffs would have to have en extra line or two, but it would still be easier to read and write music, IMO.

I've always wondered why I always had to learn "7 notes but only 5 of them have sharps" instead of 12 notes... And this didn't answer my question at all 🤣

Indian music invented notes thousands of years ago. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni

I have always seen them more as numbers rather than letters, when they are individually played.

Excellent video! Thanks for sharing.

Seems like you answered the question why are there only seven letters for 12 notes. I would like answered why there are 12 notes, period! Someone made the comment that each note is a semi tone apart from the next, so explain to me what a semi-tone is? And I would like the answer in more of a mathematical way.

At 4:40 the narrator says "There are only seven different notes in the diatonic scale" but the title of this video is literally: "Why are there TWELVE notes in music but only seven letters?"

Circle of 5ths!

4:35 would like to understand the science of musical sounds and the diatonic scale

Just depends on what you want to do. If the music is modal, use letter names. If every pitch is equally important, use set theory (0-9, T, E). If 12 pitches aren't enough, be like Ben Johnston lol

i thought it was euclid

With all due respect, you only explained the history of music notation, but did not answer the fundamental question "why we use 7 letters for 12 notes" in western music. THE ANSWER: Tradition! There is absolutely NO RATIONAL REASON behind dividing the distance between a given note's frequency and its double into 12 steps, let alone representing these 12 notes by using 7 letters. It's purely traditional, based on an old habit, which continues to this day. One might argue 12 is more divisible by smaller numbers such as 2, 3 and 4. However, this discussion would benefit 16 (hexadecimal) over 12. If you leave it to mathematicians and engineers, they would highly prefer hexadecimal system, which is much far more efficient. Similarly, we use our decimal system of numbers, not because it is the most efficient numerical system, but only because of a simple fact that we have 10 fingers! Hexadecimal system provides a more human-friendly representation and is much easier to express binary number representations in hex than it is in any other base number system. Hence mathematically, dividing an octave by 16 instead of 12 would give us more freedom and make more sense. From educational standpoint, the current traditional letter system has also made it much more difficult to learn and teach music. For instance, learning and teaching the circle of fifth would be much easier if the music notation were based on immediately understandable relative positions (from 1 to 12 say), rather than unevenly distributed letters sharps and flats. 7 unevenly distributed letter music notation tradition is outdated and useless indeed. Finally piano's white and black keys setting is also completely habitual. You can easily go ahead and build a piano with only white keys and actually make your life easier (In DAWs you can do that). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MNTUAxPVdbk.html With the rise of recording technologies, MIDI players, especially MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) or MIDI 2.0, and computerized music, this old style of music notation has already become more and more irrelevant, limiting creativity. www.midi.org/midi-articles/midi-polyphonic-expression-mpe Please refer to Microtonality: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q1XOnIk2ai8.html and polychromatic music: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tROtUTF4oHQ.html

Only 12 notes? I swear there are over 80 keys on my keyboard.

In My Music in Western Culture I got 14 Notes in the Chromatic Scale, 8 Notes in the Diatonic Scale, 8 Letters in the Music Alphabet (A B C D E F G H) then Starts all over at A Chromatic Scale A A#/Bb B/Cb B#/C C#/Db D D#/Eb E/Fb E#/F F#/Gb G G#/Hb H H#/Ab A Diatonic Scale (8 Notes) Ionian: W W H W W W W H Dorian: W H W W W W H W Phrygian: H W W W W H W W Lydian: W W W W H W W H Mixolydian: W W W H W W H W Aeolian: W W H W W H W W Locrian: W H W W H W W W Naucrian: H W W H W W W W

The 13 note is hidden! And, in plain feeling, hearing, and seeing for yourself.

I always thought the simple explanation was that there were 7 notes because god had created the world in seven days, hence Western culture try to associate things with the number 7, eg. 7 wonders of the world, 7 colours of the rainbow etc. In traditional Chinese music, there are 5 notes in the scale, and you get the same full 12 chromatic notes by sharps & flats. That's because traditional Chinese culture associate things in 5s - 5 elements, 5 colours, 5 metals, etc

This video explains nothing about the actual question.

I personally still think music should've been written as A-F, with each note simply having a sharp. No need for both a sharp and a flat; all notes would still be represented by a letter and a symbol. It also gets confusing because music evolved to have a sharp note and a flat note that are identical... which is redundant. They say that it's because they make sense in different keys, but imagine if you could write 3 ½ and "4-½" to mean the same thing on a number line... It's illogical and it reduces to absurdity.

I know that there’s seven notes in the diatonic scale, but where does the diatonic scale itself come from? And don’t just say the circle of fifths, because that can be used to find all 12 notes of the chromatic scale

Why there are 7 white keys labelled A to G and only 5 black keys makes no sense to me, however you spin it. It seems inconsistent.

Yet this video doesn't answer "why"?

This piece literally begs the question. "There are seven letters because there are seven notes in a diatonic scale". But why are there only seven notes in the diatonic scale. Sshhhh..

Meanwhile Indians knew about these sounds centuries ago

no

God spoke the world into existence. 7 days in the week, 7 letters in music. (Genesis 1)

combining the basic intervals gives you 12 notes ? How's that work.

Great video! Thank you!